CHAPTER 6

gray: strangers, plural

Lying on my back on the grass, Andrew on one side, Marcy on the other, Diana in an Adirondack chair dozing, Trey sitting at the edge of the dock with his feet in the water, it finally hit me that I had gone on my first date in more than twelve years. I had kissed a boy who wasn’t Greg and slept with my head on his chest. I had allowed a relative stranger to stay at my house. Looking over at Diana, I realized I had better make that strangers, plural.

But maybe this shouldn’t have surprised me. I was a notoriously generous drunk. I made huge donations to charities, placed ridiculous bids on auction items, volunteered to help friends with projects I had no time for.

But sharing this house that I loved so much, this place where I felt calm and free and alive, was something I had always enjoyed no matter what frame of mind I was in. And maybe that’s why it actually felt kind of right.

Yawning, I finally said what I had been thinking for hours. “I can’t bear the thought of selling this house.”

Andrew stroked my arm. “I wouldn’t want to sell it either. This place is awesome.”

Marcy sighed. “For the millionth time, Gray, don’t sell it. Keep the place.”

“I thought you had to sell it in the divorce,” Andrew said.

Marcy laughed with a snort and said under her breath, “She could buy the whole damn street.”

Andrew rolled over and rose up on his elbows, lifting his sunglasses to show me those gorgeous eyes. “Hot and rich. I knew it. You are the perfect sugar mama.”

My mouth widened in surprise, and I slapped his arm as he laughed.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

Diana chimed in, coming out of her doze at the perfect moment, “All kidding is at least ten percent truth.” Then a moment later: “Why don’t you keep the house, if you love it so much?”

I looked up into the sky, the clouds lazily floating by, sun warming this little patch of earth so perfectly. “I guess I thought it would be weird, you know? Like this was our dream house, and now that he’s gone, the dream is gone.” I sighed. “But I can still sort of see myself here at seventy years old, watching my grandkids run around in the yard, taking the boat across to the club.…”

Andrew leaned over and kissed me, his warm lips melting into mine.

“Get a room,” Diana said under her breath.

It was one of those perfect early-summer mornings where the breeze is blowing enough to keep the heat down and the mosquitoes away and you’re surrounded by people whose company you enjoy.

I was wondering when Andrew was going to leave so the rest of us could recap the night when he stood up and said, “Can I call you tomorrow?”

I patted his hand and looked from the sky to his face, where a five-o’clock shadow was forming, making him even more gorgeous, if that was possible. “You are so sweet, but you don’t have to pretend this is more than a one-time thing.”

“I’m not pretending, Gray. I can see this going somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Diana said under her breath. “To court for statutory rape.”

Marcy laughed a little too long. I got up and walked Andrew to the car as Trey called, “Bye, man.”

I kissed Andrew softly by the door of his old Land Cruiser and said, “Thank you for last night. It was fun.”

“It will be fun again,” he said, leaning over and kissing that spot where my neck met my shoulder. “Much, much more fun.” He winked at me.

“Look,” I said, “you don’t have to do this. I’m a grown-up. You don’t have to pretend. It was a fun night. I’ll see you at tennis when Wagner gets home.”

“Okay, Gray,” he said. “That’s fine.”

I didn’t like how he said it, how the flirting was abruptly over. My heart started racing. Had I talked him into not seeing me again? Oh my gosh. Did I want to see him again?

He opened the door to the Land Cruiser and climbed inside. As he cranked it loudly, I said, “Or, I mean, you know… you could call me. If you want.”

He smiled, closed the door, and rolled down the window, saying nothing. He waved as he pulled out of the driveway, and I realized that I wanted to see him again. I really, really did. And now I wasn’t sure he would even call me.

Diana walked over to me on the driveway and said quietly, “Look, Gray, are you positive about this guesthouse thing? Because if you’ve changed your mind…”

I hadn’t been sure about it at all. In fact, I’d been the opposite of sure. But if I knew Sharon Marcus, Bill’s wife, I knew that she had had this woman thoroughly vetted and background-checked. If my friends trusted Diana, I figured I could too. “I hate being all alone here, Diana,” I said, then was shocked that I had opened up to her like that. I amended, “Then when Wagner gets home, if I need you to babysit him…”

“Or Andrew?”

We both laughed.

“You like him, don’t you?” she asked.

I shrugged, but the butterflies in my stomach told me I did. I linked my arm with Diana’s, and I could tell she was relieved by the way her muscles relaxed. I thought about the story she had told me about growing up in foster care. I wondered how many nights she hadn’t known where she would lay her head. It nauseated me. And it made me really sure that my drunken, overgenerous offer had been the right one.

Late that night, Trey had gone to Raleigh for some meetings with clients, Marcy was on a date she had written off as boring before she’d even met him, Diana was in the guesthouse, and Andrew hadn’t called or texted. No Wagner, no Greg, no friends, no distractions. Just me, alone at the end of the day, facing the reality that this was my life now.

I sat down at my vanity, studying my face. Had those lines on my forehead been there before? Hadn’t my eyes been brighter? My skin suppler? Was this what divorce looked like on me?

Divorce.

I thought of my mom, of how her marriage was the biggest point of pride in her life, of how hard I had worked to hide the dissolution of mine during her last days. I felt a tear run down my cheek, but I brushed it away angrily. Whenever I had a quiet moment, I would almost always slide back into thoughts about how horrible the past year had been.

I opened the jewelry box on my vanity and slipped on my diamond eternity band and my three-stone engagement ring. I stared down at my hand, remembering the moments I had received each ring, how ecstatic I had been, how content. I never would have imagined that it wouldn’t work out forever, that Greg and I weren’t destined for happily ever after.

I closed the lid to my jewelry box and pulled my sheets back. As I climbed in, the weight of the covers—and the rings—felt comforting and familiar. I closed my eyes and pretended that Greg was softly snoring beside me.

And I told myself that someday, somehow, I would learn to be happy again—whether a man was beside me in that bed or not.

diana: gold

When Gray confirmed that she wanted me living in her guesthouse, I almost couldn’t believe it. My own Pinterest-worthy space on one of the most expensive streets in town, with plush bed linens and those real nice inside shutters on all the windows. It even had its own kitchen.

Plus, even though I gave Gray a hard time about what a disaster she was, she hardly had any laundry, and she didn’t make that much of a mess. If she didn’t work all the time, I wasn’t sure she’d need me at all.

This morning I’d been over there and made her that green juice she liked and made her bed and folded the rest of Trey’s wash, so it would be clean when he got back from Raleigh. By eight thirty, Gray had shooed me out the door and told me to get unpacked. “Just let me know if you need anything,” she’d said.

I couldn’t imagine needing anything besides what she’d already given me.

Before I left, I happened to glance down at Gray’s left hand. I looked away quickly. She blushed. “Oh, um…”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me. It’s your ring. You should wear it if you want to.” Even still, she took it off and put it back in her jewelry box. And I had the feeling that our girl Gray wasn’t as “fine” as she led everyone to believe.

I didn’t have too much stuff to unload, just the duffel bags I’d filled when I fled Harry’s house. I sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling tired even though I’d slept nine hours the night before and woken up to a view of the water.

I got up and dumped out the first bag of my stuff on the bed. That’s when I saw it. I’d wanted to get rid of it when things went down the way they did, but letting go of that locket was like letting go of the last piece of the life and the man that I thought I’d won for myself. I sat down again and rubbed the golden edges with my thumb. I didn’t want to, but I had to. I opened that locket and stared at a picture of me, young and pretty, hair blowing in the wind, resting my head on Frank’s shoulder. I wished I could see his whole face straight-on, but you couldn’t because he was kissing my head. And, oh, that smile on my face… Well, I can tell you I’ve never felt that happy since. That’s the God’s honest truth.

Most of the time I was strong and brave, so when Frank popped up in my mind, I pushed him away. But today? Today I had a little bit of time. I could drink a cup of coffee and unpack my things—and my thoughts about Frank. Since it was my day, I didn’t have to think about how it ended between us. I didn’t have to break my own heart remembering what might have been. Instead, I could just focus on how good it was when we were together, how happy we were and how in love.

“You couldn’t be more beautiful, Diana,” Frank had said. “I swear it with everything I have, you couldn’t be.”

We were sitting in the sand on an early spring day in 1998, one of those days when it’s warm enough to get outside in the fresh air and sunshine—but tomorrow there might be a blizzard. I was wearing my new jean shorts that my friend Robin swore made my butt look like Cindy Crawford’s, and Frank had just got a brand-new camera. It was a fancy one, with an automatic timer and all that.

“I have to photograph you, Diana. Please will you let me? I know you hate it, but please?”

See, I hadn’t realized yet that, through the lens of someone who loves you, you can’t help but look your most radiant. It’s like the camera picks up on the energy of the person, and it starts to see you as beautiful as they do. It’s magic, really.

“Oh, Frank,” I had said, giggling. “Why on earth would you want to take a picture of me?”

Frank had wanted to be a photographer back then. He thought he was going to make his living capturing dolphins jumping in the water and waves crashing on the shore and the way a rose looks when it’s about to bloom. Oh my goodness, I had thought he was the smartest, most artistic, most talented man in the whole entire universe. Frank saw the world through a different lens than I did, literally and figuratively. He had grown up in a stable, loving family. He’d never worried about where he would sleep or when he would eat next. He was free-spirited in a way that I knew I never could be, that my past simply couldn’t allow. But I loved living vicariously through him, feeling how he felt even for just a moment.

He had jumped up, that camera in his hand, and before I could even argue he was snapping away. I smiled and laughed and danced for the camera, but really for Frank, dipping my toes in the water and blowing him kisses. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so carefree, before or since.

“The light is perfect,” he was saying. “See how the sun is just beginning to set? It casts this gorgeous glow.”

“No, you are perfect,” I had said to him. To say I meant that with all my heart is an understatement. “Okay. Now let me get some of you.”

Frank looked at me like maybe I was a little bit crazy, which, back then, I sort of was—especially about him.

“Look,” he said, “I’m going to set the timer so we can get one together.” When Frank did something, anything at all, he did it with his whole heart. His eagerness to learn everything about this new camera was symbolic of his zest for life. It was one of the things that had made me fall in love with him so hard and so fast.

I sat down dutifully, right at the base of the sand dune. “You better hurry up,” I told him. “The sun is going to be all the way down in a few minutes.”

I’d never seen the beach that secluded. It was like our own private island paradise. He ran and plopped down beside me. I laid my head on his shoulder, and he kissed me, and that’s when that photo snapped, out of that joy. I didn’t think that day could get any better, but Frank reached in his pocket and said, “I got something for you, Diana.”

We were too young, and we didn’t know each other well enough, but if it had been a diamond ring, I can assure you I would’ve said yes. I remember gasping and saying, “Frank, it’s the most beautiful locket I’ve ever seen.”

“For the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he said, fastening the chain around my neck.

I kissed him, and when I looked up again, the sun had gone down. It was getting dark out there on that deserted beach, the waves crashing on the shore, the wind blowing just right. Me and Frank, we didn’t have to say a word to know what was going to happen next. It was one of those perfect moments where you’re young and in love and you know the person you’re with is the person you’re going to make love to for the rest of your life, not just on an old picnic blanket that night.

We laughed and carried on, and I can’t even count how many times we said we loved each other. “I can’t wait to marry you, Diana,” I can still hear Frank saying as I unbuttoned the blue Polo oxford he had tucked into his khaki shorts. “I can’t wait to have you all to myself for the rest of my life, to have babies with you and our own little house. I’m going to treat you like gold. I’m going to make you the happiest woman in the world.…”

I wanted to leave it with that thought, so I started folding up my shirts and putting them in one of Gray’s pretty drawers with the sweet-smelling shelf paper inside. I just wanted to remember him saying he was going to make me the happiest woman in the world. That day, at least, he held up his end of the bargain. That day was probably the happiest day of my life.

It’s funny how sometimes what seems like a girl’s happiest day can end up being the very worst one she’ll ever have. And for a girl whose momma gave her away and left her out there to fend for herself, that’s really saying something.